The sun shone brightly throughout most of Quebec on May 20, 1980, warming long lines of voters waiting throughout the day to cast their ballots in a historic referendum on sovereignty-association. The heavy turnout among the province's 4.3 million voters had been foreshadowed by a record level of voting in advance polls the previous Friday and Saturday. At the end of the day, 59.5 percent of those voting had said “no” to the Parti Quebecois government's proposal that it be given a mandate by the people of Quebec to enter into negotiations with the government of Canada for a new status for Quebec - political sovereignty coupled with an economic association with the rest of Canada.

Although the outcome of the referendum gave the Canadian federal union a new lease on life, the leaders of both sides of the bitterly contested five-week campaign predicted that this was not the end, that fundamental constitutional changes must occur - and quickly. In fact, during the debate on the referendum Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau already had offered the Quebec electorate a “renewed” federal system if the proposal were defeated. In return for voting no, Trudeau promised that the British North America Act, the written segment of the Canadian constitution, would be patriated from Great Britain, a formal amending procedure would be established, and a Charter of Rights and Freedoms would be added to it.